Raceday Recap: Impressive Results in Interlagos
Olá from the Brazilian Grand Prix! As the season is wrapping up, anything can happen - and that proved especially true this past race weekend. Let’s discuss Gabriel Bortoleto’s heartbreaking home race, Max Verstappen’s absolute masterclass, and a few other well-crafted performances.
This weekend in São Paulo was one of six Sprint Race weekends on the 2025 F1 calendar, and the second-to-last before the end of the year. Championship leader Lando Norris took the sprint pole and sprint victory and increased his lead over the other contenders, Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen. Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto, however, had a less successful sprint race. The Brazilian driver picked up damage on his car during the sprint race, which meant that he was unable to participate in Saturday’s qualifying session and instead started from P18 on the grid for Sunday’s race. This was a disappointing start for Bortoleto, and it only continued to get worse.
Before we debrief Sunday’s race though, let’s go through the details of qualifying. Norris took pole position, the 6th one of this year. Joining him on the first row was Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli, who has been slowly working his way up the championship rankings recently. In the second row, Charles Leclerc qualified third and Oscar Piastri took fourth. Isack Hadjar gladly claimed P5, with George Russell beside him in sixth and Hadjar’s teammate Liam Lawson starting from seventh. The eighth spot on the grid was occupied by Ollie Bearman, and Pierre Gasly and Nico Hulkenberg rounded out the top ten, in 9th and 10th respectively. One name that is noticeably absent from this list is Max Verstappen, as he started the race from the pit lane after his team, seeing how bad the car was in qualifying, took it out of parc ferme and redid the entire set-up of the car.
Norris celebrating after a sprint-weekend sweep. Photo courtesy of F1.
Lap 1 brought advantages to some drivers and disappointment to others. Lawson had an impressively quick start and was able to take Russell’s sixth place position before the first turn, pushing Russell back into seventh. Bearman was also able to jump up a place in lap 1, as he snatched P8 from Gasly almost immediately. Bortoleto, the hometown hero, found the barrier on lap 1 due to a collision with Lance Stroll, ending his race early and adding to the series of misfortunes he faced all weekend in Interlagos. On lap 6, Norris, Antonelli, and Leclerc were shuffling places for a podium but Leclerc and Antonelli were forced to go extremely wide and off of the track into the grass. Piastri tried to make a move to get ahead while the other drivers were off-track, and he succeeded in taking P2, allowing Hadjar to find P3 and forcing Leclerc to rejoin the race in nineteenth place. However, Piastri then received a 10 second time penalty for an incident with an Aston Martin. He wasn’t the only one - Yuki Tsunoda also received a 10 second penalty for causing a collision with Lance Stroll. On lap 8, the virtual safety car (occurred due to the collisions) ended, allowing Russell to take P4 from Hadjar on lap 12. One lap later, Bearman took sixth place from Lawson - a battle of the rookies! By lap 21, Verstappen had made it from the pit lane all the way up to P5, which he then confidently took from Alex Albon. Albon got overtaken again 13 laps later, this time by Nico Hulkenberg around the first turn. Piastri was having a decent race until his incredibly lengthy pit stop (13.5 seconds) slowed him down on lap 39. On lap 49, Bearman overtook Hulkenberg to claim P7, and a few laps later Piastri soared past Lawson but then was also passed by Bearman. At what seemed to be the last second, Verstappen passed Russell on lap 63 to secure his spot on the podium - a spot well earned!
From pit lane to podium - Max Verstappen proves himself every time he’s on track. Photo courtesy of Autosport.
Norris had a fantastic race, and he held his gold trophy with pride and confidence after being ahead for virtually the entire race. Antonelli claimed his second podium of the year, and Verstappen was on the third step after a miraculous showing on track. The disappointed Russell ended in 4th place, followed by a dejected Piastri in P5. Three of the rookies (Bearman, Lawson and Hadjar) found success in 6th, 7th, and 8th place, followed by Hulkenberg in 9th and Gasly in 10th to pick up the remaining points.
Overall, this race was a beneficial one for Norris and Verstappen as they continue to pursue the championship title, but less so for drivers such as Piastri, Russell, and Bortoleto who all faced difficulty on track. Brazil is always a fun race to watch, and I enjoyed this weekend very much. I hope you all did too, and as always, thanks for reading!
Lights out and away we go,
Lucy xx
